Nowadays, if a person suffers the terrible misfortune
of losing a limb, the body part is most likely incinerated along with the
hospital’s other medical waste. However, that wasn’t always the case, and CathaysCemetery
in Cardiff
contains the burials of at least four legs. (I say 'at least' as more may be
discovered as transcription of the burial registers continues.)

Some religions (Orthodox Jews, for example) believe
that all body parts must be buried with the body, but that also isn’t always the
case. The left arm of American General Thomas Stonewall Jackson is a well-known example – though Jackson died not long
after he lost his arm, the rest of him is buried in a separate grave. That is
also true of our Cardiffian legs. In one of the four instances, the body is not
even buried in the same cemetery. Apart from the locations of their burial plots, very little was known about
the lost limbs and their former owners so I started sleuthing.

The leg of Samuel Chivers was buried here 16th April 1883

The Weekly Mail of 21 April 1883 (p.7) tells
the story of Samuel Chivers’
unfortunate accident:

PONTYPRIDD. CARRIAGE ACCIDENT ON THE CARDIFF-ROAD.

A few evenings ago Mr. Samuel
Chivers, vinegar merchant, Cardiff,
and Mr. Edward Rees, his relative, were thrown out of their trap while on their
way from Pontypridd. One of Mr. Chivers' legs was so terribly injured that the
bone protruded through the cloth of his trousers, The injured limb was
amputated by Dr. Edwards, Taff's Well, on the following morning. Mr. Chivers is
a native of Pontypridd. Mr. Rees, also, was injured, but not seriously.

Samuel’s leg was buried in Cathays on 16 April 1883
and the site is now marked with a wooden cross, though that is a recent
addition. It was originally thought that Samuel was buried elsewhere as he and
his large family of 12 children and various servants had moved away from central
Cardiff but there is, in fact, a family plot in CathaysCemetery. Samuel’s son, Harold, was the
first to be buried there, in November 1902, followed by Samuel's wife Mary, in 1915,
and finally by Samuel himself, when he died aged 73 in 1917. He and his leg are, however, still quite some distance apart.

The plain headstone at the left marks the Chivers family burials

The
Chivers leg was not the first to be buried in Cathays. That dubious honour goes
to the unfortunate Miss Skyrme, whose
leg was buried a few months earlier, on 23 January 1883. Research had already
revealed that her leg had been amputated following a horrendous accident at
Gelli Colliery, at Pentre in the RhonddaValley, on Friday 19
January 1883.

She
was one of a group of seven women and five men taken down the pit to see the
workings by the manager Mr Daniel Thomas. They had only been underground a
short time when a haulier lost control of a tram, which then ran wild down the
tramway. Most of the group managed to get out of the way but the tram ran over
Miss Skyrme’s leg and the damage was so severe that the leg was amputated the
following day.

But
who was she? Edith Fanny Skyrme was born in Ystradyfodwg
in 1867 to Edward and Frances
(née George) Skyrme. Her father was both grocer and postmaster in Pentre. When
she was born, Edith already had three older brothers, Henry (pictured at right, who went on to
become a doctor), Frank (who became a clergyman) and Charles (a chemist). Two more
daughters – Kate and Clara – and three more sons -- William, Richard, and
Harold (another chemist, who developed the Shurzine Antiseptic Healing Ointment that was used extensively to treat soldiers' wounds in World War One) – brought the total number of Skyrme children to nine. Another daughter,
Alice, died when just a few months old.

Some
time between 1873 and 1875, the family moved to 6 Richmond
Terrace, Park Place
in Cardiff,
though Edward still ran his grocery business in Pentre. They were obviously
quite well off, as the 1881 census shows they employed two domestic servants.
With such a large family, I’m sure Mrs Skyrme was glad of the help!

Sadly,
though, the family were no strangers to tragedy. Their son Richard died, aged
just 7, in the last months of 1882 so the family would only just have been
recovering from that tragedy when Edith’s accident happened. In those days
amputations were much more traumatic medical procedures than they are today so
it was touch and go for a few days as to whether Edith would even survive. But,
luckily, she was young and strong, though she remained at the house of Mr
Rubert Boddicombe, fireman at the colliery, for a month until she was deemed
well enough to make the journey by train to the family home in Cardiff.

The Cathedral Road house where Edith lived with her sister Kate and family

Unfortunately,
Edith’s father Edward didn’t survive to see his daughter marry, as he died in
April 1894, at the age of 64, but I’m sure the rest of the family gathered
around, early in the year 1900, to help celebrate Edith’s marriage to
39-year-old Arthur Thomas Haddock, a coal salesman of Whitchurch. A daughter,
Margaret Frances, was born the following year.

Once
again, tragedy struck, as Arthur died of pneumonia in the first months of 1907,
aged just 46. For a time Edith and daughter Margaret continued living in
Whitchurch, then lived for various periods with some of
her brothers in England, and with her sister Kate and her family in Cathedral Road, Cardiff.
She died in Cardiff
at the end of 1924, aged 57.

Edith
Fanny Skyrme experienced much tragedy in her life but managed to
rise above the trauma of the loss of her leg and live a relatively long life. She
was buried with her husband in St Mary’s Church graveyard in Whitchurch so was never
reunited with the limb she lost in that terrible accident at Gelli Colliery in January 1883.

The pink granite cross in the foreground marks the final resting place of Edith Fanny Haddock (nee Skyrme)

The story of the other two leg burials discovered at Cathays Cemetery will follow in my next post.

Thanks to Eric R. Fletcher
for much of the information on Samuel Chivers, derived from his chapter ‘Leg of
Male’ in Cathays Cemetery Cardiff, on its 150th Anniversary, Friends of CathaysCemetery, Cardiff, 2009. To buy a copy of this fascinating book,
check the Friends website.

Thanks also to David
Skyrme for additional information about the Skyrme family. You can learn more
about his extensive research into the Skyrme surname here.

About Me

I am a writer and photographer; project
manager and English teacher; knitter and genealogist; fungi forayer and bird
watcher; countryside rambler and city strider; volunteer and child sponsor; tree
lover and cat person; researcher and blogger; nemophilist; and traveller.